MEMBERS of the team behind Burnham-on-Crouch Parkrun have reassured the community that there are brighter times ahead.

A spokesperson for the local Parkrun team said its members are doing everything possible to get the weekly event restarted after a decision was taken nationally not to restart on 5 June as hoped.

The delay was announced after hundreds of Parkruns across the country failed to secure landowner permission to return from landowners in time. This is because in many cases, lengthy paperwork, planning and risk assessment is involved in order to help keep events Covid safe.

Carly Stevenson, one of the core team from Burnham-on-Crouch Parkrun, explained: "We are working hard behind the scenes with Maldon District Council to get Parkrun up and running for 26 June.

"As you can imagine there is a long process that needs to be followed to make it as safe as possible for everyone and for us all to enjoy it.

"So please rest assured better times are coming and it's going to be a magical day for everyone who joins us again on open day.

"Parkrun in the past has been an incredible event for our community. It's brought us together to make our physical and mental health a priority. We will be posting on our Facebook page over the coming weeks to keep all updated. The team simply can't wait to see you all."

Parkrun UK is now aiming to resume all 5k events across England on Saturday, 26 June and a final decision on that will be made on Friday, 11 June.

In a statement on Friday morning, Nick Pearson, Parkrun Global CEO, said: "We will continue to work hard with landowners over the coming weeks to secure the permissions needed to return at the end of June.

"We are incredibly grateful to all of the landowners who have granted events permission to return so far, and for the groundswell of support for parkrun over recent days.

"Although it is disappointing not to be able to return on 5 June, we are still optimistic that we can return parkrun events to nearly 600 communities across England very soon.

"We will do everything we can to ensure events restart on 26 June."

You can find the Burnham-on-Crouch Parkrun Facebook page using the link here.